LOS ANGELES: Painless Wiring Harness Help on '73 Bronco

[sprdv1]

Just following along and have to add that DirtDonk, you are amazing! While the issues he is having are not super complicated, taking the time to answer in detail for a new DYIer and provide such great advice is truly appreciated. It takes a lot of time and some editing to get a good response developed and your input to original questions are very well done. I just want to thank you from the Bronco community for the time and effort you take! Thanks.

always great detail and suggestions for damn sure

 

[sprdv1]

After rewiring mine, it took a long time to get the carb primed. I installed a clear plastic fuel filter so that I could see when it started filling with fuel. Hopefully, priming it will get it running.

fingers crossed..

 

[sprdv1]

As the Mythbusters were fond of saying… “Well there’s your problem… “

lol right

 

[paddycurr]

First, to double down on Torkman's post, agreed whole heartedly. This community is soooo lucky to have all of you, truly, and Paul has gone above and beyond for me on this. I hope someday I'll be knowledgable enough to pass all this along to a newbie like me.

As for getting a spark, I installed the Pertronix in an attempt to bipass needing the ballast resistor. The red and black wires run directly out of the Pertronix in the distributor directly to the coil. I don't have a timing light (didn't know what it was) but am heading to AutoZone now so will pick one up and learn my way through it. This project is a straight re-wire. I pulled out the 50 year old harness and replaced with a Painless harness. The only substantial change I made in applying the new harness was adding the Pertronix and losing the points system. I will check the carberator as I'm troubleshooting today. I will say as the starter rolled and rolled without the engine catching there was a very subtle smell of gas in the air. This might be my problem. I also suspect that my spark plug from the distributor to the coil doesn't fit as well as it should, so trying to replace that with a new piece, too.

I will pull the brown wire off the starter relay as you suggested. Again, I'm so lucky to get this from you. THANK YOU.

Thanks for the note FluffyBunny, hoping it's simply a matter of priming the carberator. Will see if I can score something like that from AutoZone, too.

Thanks all, sincerely.

Patrick

 

[fluffybunny]

I also installed Pertronix and still wired it with the ballast resistor, but at the resistor, I ran a jumper wire to bypass it. I keep the old points in my on-board tool box just in case the Pertronix fails. I can throw in my points, remove the jumper wire and connect the resistor, and roll on.

 

[paddycurr]

I’m going to do the same. Kept the points for a rainy day.

I disconnected the brown wire from the starter solenoid, nothing different.

I took the air filter off the carb and pulled the side rower. Lots of healthy squirts and the smell makes me assume it’s not the carb or fuel filter.

Makes me think I’ve got a spark problem. When I hit the gas at start the pedal goes all the way to the floor, absolutely no change. It just FEELS like nothings firing.

I went and got a timing light, will try my hand at that and circle back, but this feels like a spark issue. Or maybe I installed Pertronix wrong?

 

[fluffybunny]

Pertronix is simple. Red wire to coil positive, black wire to coil negative.

 

[fluffybunny]

If it were me, I would pull a plug wire off of the spark plug, stick a screw driver in the end of it, and hold the metal part of the screw driver close to a bracket and have someone crank it over to see if I had spark. Make sure your hand is on handle and not the metal or it will bite you.

 

[fluffybunny]

Here's how my solenoid is wired. Can't tell you if the brown wire is the original brown as I had to slice a couple of wires and it's now all wrapped in loom but it should give you an idea of how it should look.

 

[fluffybunny]

I looked at it some more and my brown wire out of the harness is going to "I" on the solenoid and then another brown wire from there to positive on coil

 

[fluffybunny]

Did you connect your 2 neutral safety wires together (red/blue #919)? If not, I bet that's why it won't start.

 

[Brush Hog]

Is the magnet on your pertronix tight on your distributor? They will not fit on all distributors. If it isn’t tight it will not get spark. Maybe try putting the points back in and see what happens.

 

[DirtDonk]

Hey guys, thanks for the kind words! Appreciate it a great deal.

And speaking of putting the distributor back together… pop the cap off and make sure you installed it correctly. And even make sure you put the rotor back on.
Maybe it’s trying to spark but has nowhere to go. Hey, it happens!

Did your Ignitor come with the little gapping tool to verify that the magnetic pick up is not too far away and not too close?
Needs to be something like .030” or so if I remember and it does have a little leeway, but if it’s too far out of spec it won’t trigger the coil.

Let’s see the connection between the coil wire to the distributor (commonly called the “HT lead”) and how it fits to the coil.
That is an unusual coil tower and it would be good to know if you have the correct boot now like you were saying.

 

[sprdv1]

First, to double down on Torkman's post, agreed whole heartedly. This community is soooo lucky to have all of you, truly, and Paul has gone above and beyond for me on this. I hope someday I'll be knowledgable enough to pass all this along to a newbie like me.

lots of great knowledge for sure bud

 

[sprdv1]

Oh, and first time I ever heard of Venmo was last week!
So no worries for now and thanks for the offer.
We’ll figure something out but only after you get it running!

still ain't signed up for that yet...

 

[Goboysgo]

How's this one going? Curious minds want to know.